The Best King Size Mattress In 2017 – How To Choose It In 4 Simple Steps

The best king size mattress (or really any other type of mattresses) would be one that allows you to sleep through the night with as few interruptions as is possible.

Understanding this is absolutely vital in choosing your mattress. I’ve prepared a table below that compares the top king size mattresses, but first I’ll explain what you should look out for specifically.

Getting The Best Sleep Quality

Studies show that when you lie down on your bed for extended hours, the weight of your body will be pressed down against the blood vessels in your skin, which slows down the flow of blood that passes through. This usually happens more often in certain pressure points that have more weight pressing down against them, especially your shoulders. After a while, the skin receptors will tell your brain to roll over to another position, and this is when a sleep interruption occurs, however briefly. You’ll be getting a lower quality of sleep the more often this happens.

To avoid this, you shouldn’t get a king size mattress that’s too hard (because it will lead to higher pressure) nor one that’s too soft (because then you’ll sink into it, which leads to other problems like neck and back pain). Ideally, you’ll want a balance. This is where a memory foam mattress comes into play.

How Does Memory Foam Work?

A memory foam mattress can mold and contour itself to the shape of a person’s body, which allows that person’s weight to be evenly distributed across the different body parts. This helps relieve the uneven amount of pressure that usually applies to certain parts like the shoulders or even the back of the head. By doing this, you will have less interruptions while you sleep at night since you’ll have to roll over a lot less.

Personally, I always believe that individual or “expert” reviews tend to be heavily biased, so I’m not going to start preaching on how great my experience of using a memory foam king size mattress is (it was), or how you must absolutely have a specific type of product. Instead, mass reviews and statistics should prove how good a certain product really is.

Side note: Just in case you do want to know which mattress I’m currently using though, it’s a Tuft & Needle 10-inch King Mattress. I’ll be talking more about it right at the bottom of the page.

According to the statistics on SleepLikeTheDead.com, memory foam mattresses provided the highest customer satisfaction of 81% (out of some 6900 reviews) compared to any other mattress types (5 others, to be specific: water, latex, air, futon, innerspring), with the lowest satisfaction being innerspring mattresses at only 63% or so.

With that said, there are still plenty of different brands and manufacturers of memory foam mattresses to choose from, so I’ve put up a table that compares 5 of the best king size mattresses, and you can decide for yourself. I’ve included top-rated mattresses in 3 other categories, just so you can see the difference in the popularity and satisfaction as compared to memory foam ones.

King Size Mattress Comparison Table

Product Details

Tuft & Needle

DynastyMattress

Sleep Innovations

DreamFoam Mattress

Brentwood Home

Image

Type

Custom Polyfoam

Memory Foam

Memory Foam

Latex

Inner Spring

Mattress Thickness

5-inch, 10-inch

12-inch

12-inch

10-inch

11-inch

Mattress Layers

2

4

2

3

2

Uppermost Comfort Layer

3-inch custom polyfoam

3-inch gel infused memory foam

2.5-inch memory foam

1.5-inch polyfoam

6-inch polyfoam

2nd Comfort Layer

N/A

2-inch airflow foam

N/A

3" talalay latex

N/A

3rd Support Layer

N/A

2-inch airflow foam

N/A

N/A

N/A

Base Support Layer

7-inch custom polyfoam

5-inch high density foam

9.5-inch foam

5.5-inch high density foam

5-inch spring layer

Warranty

10 years

30 years

20 years

20 years

1 year

Editor's Rating

10/10

9.5/10

8/10

7.5/10

7.5/10

Amazon Rating

4.8/5

4.5/5

4.5/5

4.5/5

4.5/5

Reviews

796

831

2598

667

170

Price Range

$$$

$$

$$

$$$

$

Price Range: $ = Less than $500, $$ = $500 to $700, $$$ = $700+

Personal Experience

Since you’ve made it all the way here (and you’re hopefully not bored yet), I’m going to assume that you’re interested in what I have to say about my personal experience in hunting for a king size mattress.

In short, it had been a huge pain for me. I tend to be rather thorough in my research before actually purchasing something, and so I always get things right in the end. However, my hunt for the perfect mattress was a mind-blogging experience indeed. Firstly, not only do most mattresses look the same, they apparently have such vast differences in the structure and technology used that they come with the most ridiculous labels.

You have mattresses that have specialized lumbar support, gel-cooling capabilities and steel springs that are imported from Sweden. What about the coils? Does the mattress come with 500 coils? Or was it a thousand? Are they pocketed? What’s the difference?

The salesmen in the shops would be spewing jargons of such complexity that you wonder if they’re even real. Ever heard of Talalay? No, it’s not a random mix of consonants and vowels, although it certainly seems like it. It’s a term used to describe a method of manufacturing some sort of latex foam rubber.

All I wanted was to find a replacement for my 6-year old innerspring mattress that was giving me backaches due to the way some parts of it have sunk in permanently, and in the process, I was getting headaches as well.

In the end, it all boils down to 4 simple factors in choosing your king size mattress:

Choose from 6 different types of mattresses: foam/memory foam, latex, air, water, futon, innerspring. From mass customer reviews, it seems that memory foam is the most preferred type of mattress, while innerspring is the oldest and most commonly used in the past. Air beds or mattresses are newer in terms of the technology, but the idea of having to refill it from time to time just puts me off.

Consider the mattress thickness. The heavier you are, the thicker your mattress should be. If the mattress thickness is insufficient to hold your weight, it’ll feel as if you’re sleeping on a slab of concrete. A good rule of thumb would be to get a mattress thickness of at least 10 inches if you weigh above 200 pounds or 90 kg. If you weigh lighter than that, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.

Look at the average ratings and reviews of each individual mattress. Sure, you might come across one or two raving reviews about a certain mattress while another might have some pretty abysmal feedback on the same mattress. Which one should you trust then? The best way to go about it would be to see what the majority of users have to say about it. You’ll be able to get a much more accurate representation this way.

Look at the warranty period. Most mattresses tend to sink in after a while (even memory foam ones), so it’ll be best to go for those that have a longer period of warranty. I also believe that a manufacturer of a higher quality tends to provide an extended warranty period if they’re confident that their product will last.

Why I chose Tuft & Needle

Technically, both the layers of the Tuft & Needle king size mattressare made out of a custom polyurethane foam (or polyfoam, in short) rather than memory foam. The reason why I included this mattress as part of the top picks was because it felt a lot like a memory foam mattress in terms of its comfort and support, and I thought its spot in the limelight was warranted.

Just to clear things up, a memory foam mattress is usually denser compared to the more common polyfoam mattresses and has the added benefit of being able to resume its original shape more quickly after you get off of it, thus retaining its firmness. Also, memory foam mattresses tend to feel less “bouncy”, but that’s a matter of personal preference. Besides that though, a high-end polyfoam mattress, such as the Tuft & Needle, can feel just as comfortable and offer just as good a support as a memory foam version.

One other main reason why I decided to purchase this mattress was because of the amazing reviews that it has received in the short span of time that it’s been around (since early 2013 if my memory serves me right). However, what really won me over was the fact that it has a 30-day, zero hassle refund option, which meant that I could see for myself what all the hype was about and if I’m not sold on it, I could simply return it.

I’ll be honest though. I wasn’t immediately impressed the first night that I slept on it. It did feel a lot firmer* than what I was used to and I was concerned that I might have to start looking for another mattress soon. To be fair, it is my first ever foam mattress. However, with the thought that I’m merely trying this mattress out for free since the pickup charges are covered by Tuft & Needle, I drifted off to sleep.

*Update – Just very recently, Tuft & Needle had decided to reformulate their foam to improve on the firmness factor. The new and improved version seems much softer and a whole lot more comfortable but surprisingly, the mattress still manages to retain the excellent support that it’s well known for in the first place.

It did take me about a week to “break into it”, but since then I’ve been growing really fond of it. My neck and shoulder aches have disappeared gradually, though I can’t say for certain that this mattress is the sole cause of this because I’ve also invested in a memory foam pillow. The combination of these 2 seems to be the perfect solution for me. I’d also like to believe that my bad posture has also improved due to this mattress’s great support, though that could probably just be a placebo effect. But hey, whatever works!

Anyway, good luck and I hope I’ve helped you out in picking your king size mattress! If I have, feel free to share this page with your friends by using the Facebook like button, Twitter or whatever else is going hot these days. And finally, thanks for reading!

We're a bunch of mattress enthusiasts/semi-experts that have gathered to provide a simple, yet useful guide for people who're looking for the best mattresses. After failing to find a simplified, yet reliable source of information regarding mattresses online, we decided to research and compile our own data instead. This is the result of many hours of research both online and out in the real world.